On the Road Towards Upward Mobility

There is a clear correlation between income and vehicle ownership—as households move up the income ladder, they also move from cycles to two-wheelers to cars. While the penetration of cars varies between a minimum of 2% of households in the lowest socio-economic category (SEC) of urban SEC E households to 29% in the richest urban SEC A households, the penetration of two-wheelers varies from 27% in SEC E households to 74% in SEC A households. State-wide differences are wide, given the large disparities in levels and distribution of incomes; so even in the most affluent SEC A category of urban households, more than half own cars in Delhi and Chandigarh, while the same segment in Bihar and West Bengal sees less than a quarter of car density. Overall, the northern states do better in car ownership while the southern states top in two-wheeler density.

There is a clear correlation between income and vehicle ownership—as households move up the income ladder, they also move from cycles to two-wheelers to cars. While the penetration of cars varies between a minimum of 2% of households in the lowest socio-economic category (SEC) of urban SEC E households to 29% in the richest urban SEC A households, the penetration of two-wheelers varies from 27% in SEC E households to 74% in SEC A households. State-wide differences are wide, given the large disparities in levels and distribution of incomes; so even in the most affluent SEC A category of urban households, more than half own cars in Delhi and Chandigarh, while the same segment in Bihar and West Bengal sees less than a quarter of car density. Overall, the northern states do better in car ownership while the southern states top in two-wheeler density.

The heterogeneitythat characterizesthe modern Indianconsumer hascreated a mazethat marketerswould like tounravel in order totarget their products andservices precisely.In this fortnightlyseries, Indicus Analytics willpresent the variousfacets of urbanconsumers, acrossgeographies andsocio-economicgroups

There is a clear correlation between income and vehicle ownership²as householdsmove up the income ladder, they also move from cycles to two-wheelers to cars.While the penetration of cars varies between a minimum of 2% of households in thelowest socio-economic category (SEC) of urban SEC E households to 29% in therichest urban SEC A households, the penetration of two-wheelers varies from 27% inSEC E households to 74% in SEC A households. State-wide differences are wide,given the large disparities in levels and distribution of incomes; so even in the mostaffluent SEC A category of urban households, more than half own cars in Delhi andChandigarh, while the same segment in Bihar and West Bengal sees less than aquarter of car density. Overall, the northern states do better in car ownership whilethe southern states top in two-wheeler density.

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ooking at district-level data, the top five districts in car penetration in urban SEC Ahouseholds are Solan, Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Delhi, showing theconcentration in this region. When it comes to urban SEC E households, apart fromthese districts, Thiruvanthapuram, Srinagar, Gautam Buddha Nagar also feature onthe top. In two-wheeler penetration in the SEC A households, it¶s the smaller citiesthat lead, and these come from across the country²Erode, Dibrugarh, Surat,Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Nashik, etc. Among the lowest SEC E segment, the urbanareas of Erode, Hardwar, Mysore, South Goa and Hisar rank at the top, while themetros of Kolkata, Mumbai, Thane, Delhi and Gurgaon have the lowest levels of two-wheeler penetration. Clearly, it is not just the dynamics of income, but thecharacteristics of the towns also make a difference to the needs of vehicleownership.